The Chinese Military Speaks to Itself, Revealing DoubtsBy Dennis J. Blasko, War on the Rocks: "A large body of evidence in China’s official military and party media indicates the nation’s senior civilian and uniformed leaders recognize significant shortcomings in the warfighting and command capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)."

Strategy from the Ground Level:
Why the Experience of the U.S. Civil War Soldier MattersBy Alexandre F. Caillot, Strategy Bridge: "The lessons derived from America’s bloodiest conflict are not an isolated product of the Victorian Era—they remain just as relevant for military organizations in the twenty-first century. Strategists today should note the enduring relationship between the soldiers’ ground-level perspective and their own high-level planning."

Hybrid Warfare Represents a Threat to American InnovationBy James “Spider” Marks, RealCLearDefense: "Russia’s “investment” in Venezuelan oil, Iran’s manipulation of the Syrian War and China’s exploitation of technology all share a common theme: they represent the latest in a string of attacks against western civilization."
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European DefenseBy Angelo M. CodevillaEurope was never a full partner in its own defense. The very question—Will Europe ever fully partner with the U.S., or will the European Union and NATO continue to downplay the necessity of military readiness?—is no longer meaningful as posed, because the political energies of Europe’s elites are absorbed as they try to fend off attacks on their legitimacy by broad sectors of their population.

NATO Renewed (Coming Soon To A Theater Of War Near You)By Ralph PetersClio, the muse of history, has a fabulous sense of irony: As the human pageant unfolds, she delights in confounding our intentions and expectations. Thus, two public enemies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (whose acronym, NATO, sounds like another Greek deity) promise to be the unwitting saviors of the alliance, rescuing it from complacency, lethargy, and diminishing relevance.

Urging More From Our NATO AlliesBy Robert G. KaufmanThe United States should never expect to achieve full burden-sharing with the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Even in the most balanced alliances, the most powerful member will pay some premium for ensuring its credibility and effectiveness. The United States can strive plausibly to minimize but not eliminate the massive degree of free riding and strategic incoherence that has become politically untenable and strategically unwise.

Nyet to the Resetby Robert G. KaufmanAny reset with Putin’s increasingly illiberal and expansionist Russia is a triumph of hope over experience. Unrealistic realists underestimate the importance of ideology and regime type in assessing Russia’s calculus of its ambitions and interest.A Russian Reset? Not Unless We Want To Declare Defeat.by Peter MansoorIt is no secret that U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest ebb since the end of the end of the Cold War in 1989. Spurred on by President Vladimir Putin’s nationalist impulses, Russia has invaded two neighboring states, Georgia and Ukraine, seized the Crimean Peninsula, and interfered in elections in the United States and various European nations. Russian cyber warriors arguably made a difference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, won by Donald Trump by the slimmest of margins—just 80,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Russian agents have used nerve agent in assassination attempts on British soil. Another Reset with Russia? Sure, If We Accept the Unacceptable.by Hy RothsteinAny reset with Russia must first assess whether Russia’s policy interests are reconcilable with the interests of the U.S. and NATO. For President Putin and Russian elites, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst calamity of the 20th century. Russians have always felt a deep-seated and occasionally real sense of vulnerability from the West. For many Russians, the security dilemma is very real. Moreover, after the end of the Cold War, NATO expansion increased this perception of vulnerability beyond Russian defenses to economic and political domains as well.

Whither Nuclear Command, Control & Communications?By Colin Clark, Breaking Defense: “Most of the system that allows the president to launch nuclear weapons and to know what the enemy is doing with theirs is ancient. No one yet agrees what it must replaced with. And no one knows how much it will cost, although late last month the Congressional Budget Office issued an estimate of $77 billion."

The United States and World OrderBy Colin S. Gray, National Institute for Public Policy: “With very few exceptions the United States plays a dominant leadership role just about everywhere. This condition warrants the description hegemonic (from the Greek) so considerable is the country’s lead internationally in most of the true foundations of power. With few exceptions, this American dominance has been a source of enormous net benefit to the world at large. In common with many other powers, even the United States has a few notable weaknesses, some of them, when regarded ironically, being largely a consequence of its relative greatness.”

Australia is about to embark upon only its second strategic “course correction” since Federation in 1901. But it has yet to determine a destination, or to plot a course.

Analysis. By the Canberra staff of GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs. Few question the place of Australia in the strategic firmament. It is an economically and militarily strong part of “the West”. And yet it is now, for only the second time in its independent history, beginning to move onto a new strategic path.

It is a path yet to be plotted to a destination yet to be envisioned. It is only the second time in the country’s independent history — in the 116 years since Federation in 1901 — that it has so clearly begun such a move.

What are the headline aspects?

• Australia’s relationship with the US has already changed, and will change further. It is — although the US may not yet recognize it — evolving into a more balanced relationship;

• Australia will be forced to seek a far more nuanced balance among a variety of allies, neighbors, and trading partners;

• Australia will be forced to seek more balanced trading and economic models, given the evolution away from zero-architecture globalism;

• Australia will have to move rapidly away from its belief that it can be sustained primarily by a service economy;

Significantly, the strategic evolution of Australia is not overtly linked to changes which were announced in July 2017 in Canberra, creating some new framework elements for Australia’s national security and intelligence communities. It is a sea-change, nonetheless, even though it has yet to be formally recognized by the Government, the Defence community, or the public.

Rather, the changes being evidenced in the national security system are unconsciously reflective of (and reflexive to) the transforming context, not the other way around.
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The first shift, from strategic dependence on and alliance with the United Kingdom, to dependence on and alliance with the United States, reached a tipping point in about 1962. The signs of that shift began to be evident in World War II, as Britain’s position East of Suez began to crumble (particularly with the lost of Singapore by February 15, 1942). By May 8, 1942, with the US-Australian forces fighting the Battle of the Coral Sea, the course had become, perhaps, inevitable.

The Fundamentals of the QuadBy Walter Lohman, The Strategist (ASPI): “The most important thing that unites the Quad countries, however, is an awareness that managing the rise of China is the defining challenge of our era.

Quad Supports U.S. Goal to Preserve Rules-Based OrderBy Derek Grossman, The Strategist (ASPI): “Washington’s key objective when contending with Beijing in the Indo-Pacific is to preserve the liberal international order that has been in place since the end of World War II."

Inflated Counts of Civilian Casualties Collateral of Modern WarBy Rodger Shanahan, the interpreter: “Such is the nature of modern conflict in built-up urban areas. When there is a complex, multi-division assault on a large urban area against an entrenched enemy, with multiple methods of fire and close air support, making a determination afterwards about what ordnance collapsed what building is nigh on impossible."

Iran’s “New” Land-Attack Cruise Missile In ContextAn overemphasis by the West on seeking to check Tehran’s ballistic missile program has led to inattention to Iran’s cruise missile capabilities and intentions. Over the weekend, Iran unveiled and test-launched a "new" land-attack cruise missile, dubbed the Hoveizah, days in advance of the Islamic Republic's 40th anniversary.

5 Reasons the Navy's D5 Missile Is the Most Important Weapon in the U.S. ArsenalBy Loren Thompson, Forbes: “Last week, the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs office awarded Lockheed Martin a $560 million modification to a pre-existing contract for production and support of the Trident II D5 missile. Almost nobody outside the Navy and Lockheed’s missiles and space unit noticed. Dozens of such agreements have been completed over the years."

Spain 1808: The Birth of Guerrilla WarfareBy Paolo Palumbo, NewsRep: "A careful analysis emerges as to how the British and the French armies–given their colonial experiences–are the most accustomed to dealing with this type of emergency. In fact, many tend to forget what the European continent was like after the French Revolution, when the republican armies wore the liberators’ uniforms."​

More Missile Defense Ships, New Ground Deployments​By Paul McLeary, Tuesday, January 29, 2019 4:19 PM
Despite the Navy’s misgivings over having dozens of its ships sailing in boxes hunting for missiles, plans remain in place for more Aegis-capable hulls, as well as new radars, and mobile missile defense batteries.

Pondering China's Future Nuclear Submarine ProductionBy Rick Joe, The Diplomat: “ ... A rumored new nuclear submarine production facility under Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Company (BSHIC) at Huludao may also be edging closer to completion. Therefore it's a good occasion to reflect on what Chinese nuclear submarine production may look like in the future.

The New Iron Curtain: Russian Missile DefensesBy Thomas Grove, Wall Street Journal: “North from Syria, along the borders of Eastern Europe and rounding the Arctic Circle to the east, Russia has built a ring of air defenses that threaten the reach of the U.S. military, forcing Washington to rethink its place as the world's undisputed air power."

Why the Quad Won’t Ever Be an Asian NATOBy Andrew O'Neil & Lucy West, The Strategist (ASPI): “The most recent meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Singapore last November suggests that the U.S., India, Japan and Australia regard the initiative as a geostrategic multiplier in the Indo-Pacific."

Trump Endorses Ambitious Goals for Missile DefenseBy Rebeccah L. Heinrichs, Hudson Institute: “The MDR did not state, as President Trump did, that the goal of the United States is to work toward a capability that, “regardless of the missile type or the geographic origins of the attack,” ensures “that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above.””

The New Rules of WarBy Bob Underwood, Strategy Bridge: “Victory. That is why we are all here. But, does anyone know what victory in war looks like over the next several decades, or how to achieve it? There is no shortage of authors in the ever-growing literature on strategy and national defense telling us both what victory in war will look like and how to get there. Count me a skeptic.”

Gregory B. Poling and Eric Sayers write: A storm is brewing in America’s oldest security alliance in the Indo-Pacific and the administration needs to act quickly to head it off. On December 20, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana called for a review of the provisions of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between Washington and Manila.[…] The primary reason for this review is what Lorenzana called America’s “ambivalence” about whether the treaty applies in the South China Sea, where Philippine troops and facilities are under threat from an increasingly assertive China. – War on the Rocks

The War Cycle: A Model for Managing WarBy Albert Palazzo, Strategy Bridge: “Despite the use of these conceptual models by the U.S. military and others, by doctrine writers and military theorists, as well as their presence in military curriculums, both tools have features that undercut their usefulness. In fact, a strong case can be made that the utility they offer to the military and their political masters can be more negative than positive.”

Leading in Uncertainty: A Division Officer’s PerspectiveBy John D. Miller, Proceedings Magazine: “Disruptions in the status quo generate a diverse range of human reactions and emotions. Sailors look to their chain of command to make sense of an uncertain future. To successfully meet this challenge and retain the warfighting readiness of the force, leaders must prepare for these interactions to bring both assets and operators to the future fight."